In the first person shooter genre, there are many fine franchises with games worth playing. As such, it is important to ask why you should play any particular title. What is it about that particular game that you're not going to find anywhere else? Gamecock's “Legendary” is well aware of this question, and answers it in two ways; first by leveraging traditional stories and characters as a game plot, and also by creating an AI for mythical creatures that makes them into intimidating foes that you generally don't want to tackle head-on. That second bit will make more sense shortly – for now let me fill you in on the first...

Legendary is the story of Charles Deckard, talented thief for hire, and his most recent job – stealing the contents of what turns out to be Pandora's Box. Those of you familiar with the legend can imagine that opening the box is a bad thing – and even though the legend is substantially changed, this important bit carries through. Obviously, Deckard has been set up by his employer, the insidious Mr. LeFey, and when he moves to complete his assignment, the lock on the box grabs Deckard's hand and brands himwith an arcane symbol. At this point, when the lock is opened, we begin to learn more about the “real” story behind Pandora's Box – but that can't happen until Deckard escapes from the magical Ground Zero he has unwittingly created. An exciting “set up” level launches, and the player is asked to run from a fountain of magical energy that is destructive and beautiful; as cool to look at is it is dangerous to be around.

(As an aside, this segment showcases a very cool idea called path creation. Players obviously need to be railroaded a bit – but nobody likes to feel as if they're running an obstacle course that's a complete formality. In Legendary, players will often get their direction from story events such as crumbling walls or explosions that knock cars about. This makes you feel less like a rat in a maze, and more like someone who's actually running and fighting for their life)

Once clear of a New York street suddenly flooded with hungry gryphons, we learn that Pandora's Box was actually a powerful device used by ancient man to imprison mystical species that threatened our very existence. Opening the box has, obviously, unleashed said enemies, and also marked Deckard as man's only hope. You see, the brand he now bears links him to the escapees, and also empowers him to fight against them by using the arcane energy called “Animus.” Animus is the life force of mystical beings, and is also used by human magicians to do the things that we commonly associate with wizards and mages and such. This means that if Deckard wants to put out a whammy on his enemies, or defend himself in magical ways, he'll need to slaughter an occult critter. Sadly, these occult critters tend to be pretty badass. Remember the gryphons I mentioned before? They're big. Big and ugly. And mean. They like to grab cars and fly around with them ... and bomb people with them. Oh – and good grief, gryphons are just the FIRST of the magical beasties you run across! In order to undo what you've wrought, though, you'll need to go through gryphons and more, straight on through titan-class enemies the size of buildings. Because they're sometimes MADE of buildings. This, then, is the heart of Gamecock's second “hook” ... how the HECK do you beat these things up?

Sometimes these mythical creatures have inherent weaknesses. Douse a fire drake in water, and it's far less flammable. Other times, you just have to work with what you've got ... guns! Pump enough lead (silver not required) into a werewolf and it'll die just fine. More often than not, though, you need a trick to get enough ammo into the wolf before he eats you. Knock him off a ledge, finish him off while he's tangling with other combatants, push him away with a pulse of animus energy ... something clever is generally called for, and THIS is where Legendary shines. In the short time that I was playing, I found several different ways to take out werewolves, each of them distinct and useful. Assuming that flexibility is carried through with most of the occult beasts, I cannot imagine players ever finding themselves blowing through rinse-and-repeat hallways full of generic enemies, and that's an exciting prospect.

It's important to note that there ARE human enemies in the game: The Black Order. They're LeFey's crowd, and they have their reasons for wanting Pandora's Box open. Whenever they're around, you'll get to tangle with gun-toting human opponents as well as magical foes, but the humans are FAR less threatening and are often part of the key to defeating the real danger. In fact, I tricked some Black Order into blasting a werewolf while they were shooting at me. The wolf ate them rather quickly, and I finished off the weakened lupine. I was encouraged to think of all my enemies as both predator and prey. Humans are prey when you need bullets and equipment, and the fey are prey when you need Animus to heal yourself, or to blast something with mojo. In both cases, you have to get what you need at the lowest cost possible. While you're encouraged to furball a little bit (this isn't an advance to cover and fire on battle lines style of game) you really have to THINK about how you're going to get what you want.

So, really, the twin towers in Legendary are the storyline and the AI/tactical nature of the game. Gamecock is so confident in the storyline that they're launching a graphic novelization, and I'm personally interested to see what they've done with various legends, secret societies, and figures of ancient power. The AI will speak for itself, but what I saw at E3 makes me believe that there's real meat there – and that FPS fans will have a unique treat on their hands. Look for this one in Fall, 2008!